Worth It
by galaxies in her eyes
Summary: She feels like she's underwater: her ears don't seem to work properly, and she knows she's talking but she doesn't know what she's saying, and then she sees him raise his wand and mouth the incantation — Avada Kedavra — and she knows that this is it, this was the end, but it will be worth it if she can just save her son.


**Hogwarts (Challenges and Assignments).**

 _Assignment 7 — Wandlore: Wanduse by Fairy Godmothers — task 3 — Sleeping Beauty — write about someone going into hiding_

 _Going, Going, Gone! — (scenario) father of the bride getting all tearful_

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 **A/N: Cheers to your sweet 16, Sienna.** **I hope this is angsty enough for you.**

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Lily Evans never expected to marry the messy-haired boy she had bumped into at Diagon Alley the summer before her first year. And yet, here she is, wearing a white satin dress and standing in front of the mirror in her dressing room with her mother sitting on the sofa behind her.

"You look gorgeous, Lils," says her mother, dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief. "I can't believe you're getting married. It seems only yesterday you were telling me that boys had cooties and you would never, ever get married."

Lily laughs. "I'd forgotten about that. I said it a lot, didn't I?" she recalls.

Rose Evans nods and gives her daughter a watery smile. "Then, just a few years after that, I remember you trying on my wedding dress and pretending your teddy bear was the groom." She sighs. "Old times."

Lily had gone dress shopping with her mother and her girlfriends — Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadowes, and Alice Prewett — but hadn't found anything that suited her fancy. So her mother dug out her own wedding dress, which had also been her mother's dress, and gave it to Lily.

It had yellowed a bit with age, but Lily took it to a dress shop in Diagon Alley and had it magically cleaned so the true color — a rich cream — showed.

The brocade at the laced bodice is heavy but beautiful, and there's a Celtic knot design on the fabric. The sleeves are puffed a bit at the shoulders but then slimm and cover Lily's arms in a sheath that fit perfectly. The skirt is long and brushes the floor, and it has a bit of a flounce to it, but it doesn't poof too much.

She thinks it is perfect.

Her father pokes his head around the door right then. His eyes fall upon Lily, hands upon her hips, twisting from side to side and watching the skirt twirling. "You look beautiful," he says — and mentally curses his gruff voice.

Lily beams at her father and spins around, arms to the side and head tilted back. The skirt of her dress flares out and she laughs. When she stops and faces her father, his eyes look suspiciously wet.

"Are you crying?" she teases him. He brushes his knuckles over the offending orbs and sniffs.

"No!"

They both laugh. Then he offers his arm to her the way a gentleman would and she takes it it. "Are you ready to get married?" he asks. Her mother gets up from the couch and touches her daughter's shoulder.

Lily grins up at her father then her mother. This is the man who helped her learn to read, to ride her bike; this is the man who threatened the kids who bullied her because she was different. This is the woman who told her when she was wrong but never made it seem like it was all entirely her fault; this is the woman who had taught her how to cook and garden and who hadn't even had to be begged to play dress up.

"Born ready," she replies. Her stomach is aflutter with nerves, but she spoke the truth: she couldn't be more excited to marry James Potter, the man of her dreams.

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"What?" Lily shakes her head frantically. "No, we can't — we can't go into hiding when the war's going on out there!"

Her husband of nearly a year stands beside her silently. Lily turns to him. "James, please. You can't honestly agree that we should go into hiding. Can you?"

He doesn't look at her. "Lils." His voice is soft. "You're pregnant, and You-Know-Who has a prophecy about a baby whose birth will fall right around the time that our child is due — to parents that have thrice defied the Dark Lord. We can't risk this: I can't risk losing you or our unborn child. We need to do this."

Lily's eyes are wild and her hair flies into her eyes as she shakes her head. "James, we can't! Vol — You-Know-Who — is coming for a kid born around the end of July. But what if it isn't ours? What if it's some other baby?" She hugs her still flat stomach. They had found out about the baby literally a week beforehand.

He still won't look at her. When he speaks, his voice is still quiet, but full of pain: "You would wish death upon another child, Lily? You would hope fervently that our daughter or son will not be the one — but be totally fine with some other person's baby being killed?"

"What?" She looks shocked. "No — no, of course not! But we can't simply stand by and watch others fight in this war and not raise a finger to help."

"If it was Alice and Frank's son —"

He doesn't need to say more. They both know that she will give in to protect the life growing inside her and her friends.

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"It's him! Take Harry and run!" Lily is in the kitchen when she hears these words — the words she had hoped never to hear. She drops the candied apple she was making to the floor, making it land with a splat on the floor, and she watches the caramel spread over the white tile before she hears a cold, high laugh and a thud.

And she _knows_.

She knows that it is useless to try to evade capture and death. But she will protect Harry at all costs. So she races up the steps to her son's nursery, taking the stairs two at a time.

When she bursts into the nursery, Harry is playing with his blocks on the floor. She scoops him up and sets him in his crib — as though the bars will make a difference.

She hears someone ascending the stairs, and she tries to stop her hands from shaking. If she is going to die tonight, she will do it fearlessly. Well, that isn't exactly true: she'll be scared out of her wits for the entire encounter with the evil lord, but she will go down protecting Harry fiercely.

When Voldemort enters the room, her heart is beating so loudly in her chest that she is sure he must be able to hear it. She doesn't really hear the words he says, just sees his lips moving. She can't afford to get distracted by anything. Not if she is going to save Harry.

She feels like she's underwater: her ears don't seem to work properly, and she knows she's talking but she doesn't know what she's saying, and then she sees him raise his wand and mouth the incantation — _Avada Kedavra_ — and she knows that this is it, this was the end, but it will be worth it if she can just save her son.

Then that flash of green light that has claimed the lives of so many of her friends is shooting straight at her, and Voldemort laughs that same cruel laugh, and her baby son is crying but she can't hear him, can't pick him up to comfort him, because that jet of neon light has finally reached her, has hit her squarely in the chest and everything is in slow motion —

And then she crumples.

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 _word count: 1251_


End file.
